Welcome New CISC TAs

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Welcome New CISC TAs!
Rich Burns Joe Szymanski Ertugrul Yilmaz Timo
Koetzing Joseph Kern Kevin Krieser Chee Wee
(Ben) Leong Mike Ralston Dan Waegel , Yun Xiao
Seniz Demir New to
being a TA, though not new to UD CIS Dept.
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Introductions

• Who am I?
• Phill Conrad
• Asst. Professor (CNTT), CIS Dept UD
  (2003-present)
• Instructor/Asst. Professor, Temple Univ
  (1998-2003)
• Lecturer, UD CIS Dept (1996-1998)
• Current Position "Continuing Non-Tenure Track"
  Asst. Professor
• Continuing career-oriented, longer contracts,
  possibility of promotion
• Non-Tenure focus undergraduate
  teaching/advising, rather than research
• Teaching emphasis
• C/C programming courses (CISC105/CISC181/CISC220
  )
• Web development (CISC103, CISC474)
• PhD student in UD CIS 1992-2000 (completed Dec
  2000).
• Interests outside Computer Science
• Music, Crafts, Meditation, Hiking/Backpacking,
  Swimming, Biking
• Who are you?
• Tell us your name, something about yourself
• Practice using your "teacher voice".

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On being a TA...

• Not only a way to make money, but an
  apprenticeship in teaching.
• Important member of the teaching staff
• Practice in juggling teaching with
  research/scholarship responsibilities.

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Our purpose today

• Talk a bit about being a TA
• Answer your questions

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The job of a CIS TA (10 or 20 hrs/week)

• Assist Instructor in teaching the course
• Typical duties
• Holding labs (for courses with labs 101, 103,
  105, 106, 181, 280)
• Helping students during office hours
• 2 hours per week is typical
• You should also be available by appointment
• Answering student email
• Grading
• Weekly planning meeting
• Less typical, but sometimes occur
• Attending course lectures
• Developing assignments and course materials
• Guest lecture for professor when away
• Assist with proctoring final exam
• Other duties as determined by instructor

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For TA work, your instructor is your supervisor

• She/he will supervise your 20 hours per week (10
  if half/time)
• If you teach two courses, you owe 10 hrs/weekto
  each instructors assigned duties.
• Difficulties seldom arise in working with faculty
  supervisors, but if they do, to whom can you
  turn?
• Unofficially
• your advisor, or any other faculty member you
  trust
• Officially
• graduate committee chair
• department chair

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Office Hours

• You should post your hours on your web site
• put in public_html file on Composers account,or
  public_html file on eecis account.
• (say a bit here about different computer
  systems...)
• Unless you are told otherwise
• 2 hours per week
• in Pearson Hall
• coordinate times with Linda Magner and your
  Instructor
• Linda works in CIS Dept. Office.
• Avoid
• the scheduled lecture time
• times when your instructor has office hours.

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About labs

• Which courses have scheduled labs?
• CISC101 MS office (2 hours)
• CISC103 XHTML and JavaScript (2 hours)
• CISC105 C Programming (CS1) (50 minutes)
• CISC106 Matlab Programming (CS1 for Engg) (50
  minutes)
• CISC181 C Programming (CS2) (50 minutes)
• CISC280 Scheme Programming (CS4) (50 minutes)
• Where are labs held?
• CISC101 in PC labs in rooms throughout campus
• CISC103 in a PC lab in basement of Memorial Hall
  (028)
• The rest Sun Ray lab (X Terminals using Gnome on
  Solaris)in Willard Hall 009B (Main Street,
  across from Trabant Garage, next to Deer Park)
• What about the other courses without labs?
• Larger programming assignments, and you get
  assigned to two classes rather than one
• So the workload balances out (sort of...)

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Grading Assignments

• Rubric rules for grading
• Ideally, your instructor gives you a general
  rubric, e.g.
• 40 pts for correctness of algorithm
• 40 pts for style/formatting of code
• 20 pts for neatness of printed output
• Rubrics can be more or less detailed than that.
• Keep in mind
• usual paradigm for US undergrads
• start with 100
• apply deductions for specific reasons (defects)
• if you make deductions, write down a specific
  reason
• apply partial credit where it is appropriate.
• Develop your own detailed rubric as you go along
• as you encounter errors, keep a log of how much
  you deduct for each defect use same deduction
  when you encounter that again.

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Example Rubrics

• http//www.cis.udel.edu/gibson
• http//www.cis.udel.edu/gibson/181/grades

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More on grading...

• Keep instructors grading scale in mind
• Students will give meaning to your grade this
  wayTypical
• 90-100 A Excellent
• 80-89.9 B Good to Very Good
• 70-79.9 C Fair to Satisfactory
• 60-69.9 D Poor
• below 60 Failing
• Student challenges to grades
• Have a procedure (and a deadline) (e.g. 2 weeks)
• Grade and return work promptly
• Within 1 week of receiving it.
• Communicate with your instructor if you get
  behind.

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Academic HonestyAlready covered in University
Orientation, but to emphasize a few points
specific to CIS

• Fortunately, most students dont cheat.
• However, because there are so many students, you
  are very likely to encounter at least one case
  each semestersometimes more than one.
• Most common violation
• Students copying code from one another
• Always involve the instructordo NOT handle this
  yourself as a TA
• How to handle it (next slide)

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How to handle academic dishonesty

• Always involve the instructordo NOT handle this
  yourself as a TA
• Your role
• Detect the possible dishonesty
• dont assume that you know what happened there
  have been surprising cases!
• Provide evidence to the instructor, and let the
  instructor handle it.
• Some helpful things to do
• Determine the grade the students would have
  gottenif you did not suspect dishonesty
• Put the grade on the paper, but do NOT report it
  to the students.
• Separately, email your concerns about the paper
  to the instructor. Or, you may circle things
  on the printouts, etc.
• Do NOT notify the students in any way---that will
  be the instructors job.
• If students question you as to why there is no
  grade, or their paper hasnt been returned say
  only the following.(Repeat this over and over
  to them if they press you for more information)

I had some questions about how to grade your
paper, and I needed to consult with the
instructor
If you have further questions, you should contact
the instructor directly
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Still more on grading

• Submission of assignments
• paper, directly to TA (pros and cons)
• paper, via mailbox (can be problematic)
• electronic, via email
• electronic via WebCT
• DO NOT
• have students bring papers to the CIS Office
• have students ask secretaries to time stamp the
  papers.
• Returning grades
• Public Posting by SSNs is illegal
• not just against university policy, but in
  violation of US Federal Laws (FERPA Act)
• Even "last four digits" is illegal
• University is starting to enforce this strictly
• use secret codes instead.
• Dont allow any codes that look like SSNs.
• Electronic means (mygrade program, WebCT)

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More on privacy...

• Dont discuss one students grade in front of
  another (whether good or bad)
• Dont have students put SSNs on papers or in
  program comments (if they do, discourage them)
• Don't send SSNs through email.
• When returning papers, try to obscure the
  grade.Some strategies
• Write it on page two, not on page one
• Fold paper in half as you hand it back

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Office Hour Skills

• Help students arrive at a solution by giving
  hints, but dont do the work for them.
• Try to always have a helpful attitude
• can be challenging when students are asking you
  to do their work for them.
• Lets see a couple of examples...

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I could tell you the answer, but...

• ... Id be cheating you out of an opportunity to
  learn.
• Let me show you instead how to work a similar
  problem...
• Lets think about how to break down the problem
  into smaller pieces....
• Let me suggest you read this section in the
  textbook again. If you still dont understand,
  bring your textbook with you, and well read
  through that part together and see what you still
  arent getting.
• Let me suggest you look again at the web site,
  where I think that question is addressed.

A key point is tone... the same thing can be
said in a helpful way or an unhelpful way...
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Student emails

• an important part of your duties
• can be very helpful to students, but can also be
  a drain on your time
• set expectations for turn around
• (i.e. NOT necessarily immediate, even if it was
  last time)
• class email lists/bulletin boards as alternative
• helps avoid many duplicate questions
• AVOID debugging programs via email
• consider splitting account usage to help time
  budgeting
• e.g. composer account for student email,CIS
  account for all other email (or use gmail
  account?)
• allocate a fixed time slot per day to answering
  student emails.
• to avoid spam filters and aid in sorting,
  suggest students put CISCxxx (course number) in
  subject line.

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Problem students

• The grade grubber
• always questions every little point you deduct
• The monopolizer
• monopolizes your office hour time
• The hostile student
• nothing you can do is right
• The overzealous fan
• wants to follow you around everywhere

There are strategies/resources for dealing with
these... McKeachies Teaching Tips Faculty
mentors... Center for Teaching Effectiveness
(cte.udel.edu)
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Final Thoughts

• Email/Call/Visit your supervising professor as
  soon as possible.
• Exchange phone numbers/email
• Find out when your instructor wants to see you
  next.
• If you have further questions, feel free to email
  me pconrad_at_udel.edu